Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Here's an updated budget picture for the pool project (see chart below). We were able to reduce the cost of the project from $3.2 to $2.6 million dollars by removing the kiddy pool and spa and performing some serious value engineering. Fundraising is creeping along, mostly in the form of bricks. We've raised over $25,000 to date, but as you can see, we are still over a hundred thousand short of being able to open the pool this summer. Considering that we originally hoped to raise over $1 million dollars, we think $100-150K is very doable.

We hope to be able to close this gap further by avoiding change orders that dip into the budgeted contingency. The City Council voted last night to issue bonds through US Bank rather than a public offering. The result of this vote is that we've saved over $37,000 in issuance costs that can now be put towards construction. Due to the structure of the debt, it looks like tax rates initially will be slightly higher than projected and will likely be around $.37 per thousand assessed value for the first few years. The council felt it was a reasonable trade off to save up front costs and the average rate over 20 years remains below $.30. For the average home, the 2009 assessed value was $131,036 which yields a tax rate of about $50/year.

We still need to work hard at fundraising to be able to open the pool. We still have plenty of room for bricks in the front walkway, and the donor board has only a handful of names donating over $1000. Please spread the word.

Thanks again to our contributors, your support is hugely important to our community!

Friday, January 22, 2010

There's been a lot going on at the pool site in the last couple of weeks. The slab floor of the pool building has been poured, and the contractors were lucky enough to get three days of clear weather exactly when they needed it, so the pool walls are now in place. It's really exciting to see it actually look like a pool! City staff had the same reaction, "Wow, this is a lot bigger than the old pool, it's going to be great!"

Unfortunately I was sick when they were shooting the concrete walls of the pool, buy Kyle took great pictures so you can see how it works. Pretty neat. Hope you all enjoy the pictures, there's also a video of the finished interior of the pool.

It does seem that there's a few people still don't know about this project or the fact that we still need to raise money to open the pool this summer. Please help spread the word.--Brian

Saturday, January 9, 2010

Friday, January 8, 2010

The pool guys from Arizona have unthawed and forming of the pool walls will continue over the next week or so in preparation for the shotcrete process to lay up the walls. The building foundation should be poured early next week after a few issues with the plumbing and rebar are resolved. There's a lot of stuff in the floor of the building, so a little extra time getting everything straight is worth the effort. Once the floor is down, the brick masons will go to work and things will really start to take shape. The pool is really starting to look like a pool and it's exciting to think how close we are.

We still need to raise money to furnish and outfit the facility. Brick orders have been trickling in at the rate of a few per week and our fundrasing total is about 80% brick sales. I just received one of the $500 custom logo bricks in the mail and it really looks sharp. Hopefully more businesses will chose to contribute.